Social Media and The Good Wife TV Furor!

Didn’t ever think I’d be writing this, but last night’s episode of The Good Wife killed off the major male lead on the series as Will Gardner was killed in a courtroom shootout.

There, and I’m being as honest as I ever could be when I’d admit right off the bat – I had NO INKLING that this would be happening! But the twists and turns of a TV show are not what this post is about…instead it’s about the change in the way we viewers use social media to react…and to rant and rave!

Well, in this case…it’s rant mostly as I’ve scoured the various online media sites looking for reactions – and there are hundreds of thousands of “gee whiz I hate it” type tweets and posts and forum comments….and so far I’ve not found a single “yea, way to go” types out there at all (warning spoilers coming!)….and much like “The Red Wedding” episode of the Game of Thrones last summer a huge change in the show’s plot too, eh!

The TV show “The Good Wife” is a CBS show, in it’s current 5th season and has for the most part been a real success. We watch it here at home each week and yes enjoy the life, troubles and times of the ensemble cast and we would agree with most that it’s a solid hit. That said, as we now know, the lead male actor Josh Charles, who plays Will Gardner, wanted out of the show last season but was talked into remaining for a few episodes of season 5. What the show has been about in the past couple of episodes, was the gathering push to take the Govenor of Illinois (Chris Noth) to court for ‘ballot box stuffing’ and use his wife Alica (played by Julianna Margulies) and the lead male Will Gardner, to testify against him. Pressure was mounting to get that into effect and it boiled down in the first half of last night’s episode to show us that the one who would comply would have to be Will Gardner…he’d cave in and have to tell the truth which would launch the impeachment of the Govenor (shades of earlier real life here, eh!)

But in a real stroke (IMHO) of ingenuity, Will was killed off- shot by a deranged client in the courtroom…and dead. Sheet over the head type dead – and not I’m positive the same way all those shennanigans happened on the TV show Dallas only to be explained away by a dream in the shower. That the writers would do this, was a surprise, but it will end the impeachment process for sure. That they’d kill off a major character to do that is surprising, until we learn today that Josh Charles contract was over and he wanted out of the seriess… But last night as the show played out….and Will was shown as dead – the Twitter universe exploded! The term #thegoodwifetrended right up to the top as TV show fans cried out that they never saw it coming (that’s GREAT TV eh!) and that it shouldn’t have happened!

There are too many to show here…but a couple do I think need to be displayed…for instance here’s a couple of typical tweets on the death of the major male character….

More tho should be considered….in that not only did the Twitter-verse explode, but that the show’s creators (who also wrote last night’s episode) knew that this huge change would trigger the outburst of social media calls – but that they planned ahead and published an open letter to the show’s fans right on the hompage for the show over at cbs.com and here’s the link to same….

Add to that, that the actor Josh Charles who was killed off also knew to have an explanation ready and his take on why he wanted to leave as well as his kind words about the show itself can be found here too….

It’s obvious then that the need to talk to fans about why some changes happen, need to happen, why they happen and where that “locates” the show in the current fanbase is a new trait to TV production…but one we see that is very much apparent in modern “social media awareness” would be the case now.

The show will go on, with a great ensemble cast…and from what I’ve seen and been able to research in the past few hours, it will only get better. Kudos to the Kings, the couple who created the show and to the cast too…last nights version was totally a change to how we fans all look at the show…but as it was so very well handled, it’s going to be even more a “crowd-pleaser” in future I think…

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Didn’t ever think I’d be writing this, but last night’s episode of The Good Wife killed off the major male lead on the series as Will Gardner was killed in a courtroom shootout. There, and I’m being as honest as I ever could be when I’d admit right off…

Didn’t ever think I’d be writing this, but last night’s episode of The Good Wife killed off the major male lead on the series as Will Gardner was killed in a courtroom shootout. There, and I’m being as honest as I ever could be when I’d admit right off…